Video: Ferguson Protests Target Another Black Police Officer

2 Dec 2014

Activists using the pretext of the grand jury’s decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri attacked police in San Francisco’s Union Square on Black Friday while frightening shoppers. New video of the event has been released, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

One demonstrator hurled a construction barricade at a police officer while he was helping other officers handcuff a man in the ground. After the officer was struck by the barricade, a fellow officer leaped up to pursue the thrower but fell down, as onlookers laughed at him.

Videos of the incident appeared online, with one Vine video numbering its viewers at roughly 13 million loops by early Monday morning. A longer version was posted on Vimeo.

San Francisco police are reviewing the videos, but have not reported how many people they arrested.

One black woman trailed a black policeman, shouting, “We are ashamed of you! Your people are ashamed of you! Your father tried to fight for this! We’re out here fighting for your people, for your son! Even when you don’t respect us, we want your son to be okay! We are out here for you! We are your people!” Others around them marched along, screaming at the policeman, “Sellout Cop!” “Sellout Cop!”

The activists, who numbered in the hundreds, barged into Union Square’s main shopping area. They smashed windows of stores and cars, and assaulted policemen following them, sometimes by hurling bottles at them. Shoppers kept their frightened children inside the stores, while store owners lowered their metal entry gates. Broken glass injured one officer, a thrown brick injured another.

CBS San Francisco reported that one activist smashed a window at Grace Jewelry with a sledgehammer; the Apple store locked their doors and customers could not leave or enter, and windows were at the Westfield San Francisco Centre.